


Inbetweens

by yuletide_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-21
Updated: 2003-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 03:57:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1630244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Sangerin</p>
    </blockquote>





	Inbetweens

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sangerin

 

 

Three weeks on road now and CJ had gotten into the habit of taking the seat directly behind the Governor and his wife on the campaign bus. She would spend hours riding the gentle, relentless sway of motion with press releases in her hands, eyes fixed to the slice of Abbey she could see from where she sat. She'd taken extra time debating with herself as to the colour of Abbey's lipstick, but would forget every time she looked away from her mouth and up to her eyes, where thick lashes stuck together with coal-grey mascara. 

Toby often sat next to CJ, going on, soliloquy, in that completely fascinating way of speaking he had, or his nose stuck in the crease of a statistics report, valiantly ignoring her just the same. Didn't matter; he'd always be involved in his own crusade enough to not notice that her nods were perfunctory, her assenting hums meant for somebody else. They were sleeping together, almost half-heartedly, but the comfort of familiar hands on her skin in strange beds was worth the slight angst of waking up wondering how her boss' wife would feel in the flush of dawn. CJ dealt with the guilt by bestowing, between the over-starched sheets of whatever hotel acted as pit-stop that night (and that one time in the bathroom of a particularly gruesome Denny's), what she thought as above-average fellatio skills. He never complained. 

There were times where Toby enjoyed his own company too much to profit from hers; and she would commiserate about this with Sam, laughingly, omitting details she knew Sam would figure out anyway. And other times, half of them at least, would be spent chatting with Donna, about work or men or Josh, whom Donna was _not_ sleeping with. This fact took up most of their conversations, being a huge preoccupation for all those involved. She and CJ would keep their voices conspicuously low--the way only women can--setting the surrounding males on a sort of nervous, instinctive edge. Josh would rant on, oblivious, huddled at the back of the bus with Sam and Toby and Leo, and whatever staffers he could get to listen to him. The glares Donna would throw him from over the headrest would be singeing, but otherwise ignored. CJ could relate. 

The times when Donna would bite her tongue and stand by Josh in spite of everything, CJ was left alone in her twin seats. She'd then take advantage of the sorely-needed leg-room, tucking herself sideways and using her lap to spread briefs and newspapers and other excuses she could look at when she wasn't staring at Dr. Bartlet, which she really was trying to cut back on. Maybe tomorrow. 

Much to CJ's relief, the Governor had enough sense never to recline his seat when she sat behind him, for which CJ was grateful enough to want to elect him on that fact alone. She was briefly reminded of years spent folding awkwardly adolescent legs against the back of the vinyl seats of bright-yellow buses that stopped at railway crossings.   
 

* * *

  


The hotel bar was full of well-dressed people too exhausted to sleep. The boys were recycling an ancient argument at a table in the back of the room, but CJ was favouring the bar, savouring a bad whiskey sour and worse peanuts. One look at her and the bartender kept his confessional small talk to himself. CJ grinned with dim amusement at the idea of scaring prospective voters away with the bags under her eyes. But Leo'd told her this would be par for the course, unless she gave up her career in politics and went back to minding pampered movie stars--and there was no question in CJ's mind which was worse. 

Half an hour before, she'd been lying on her bed in her wrinkled Donna Karen listening to Abbey and the candidate argue, one room over, about something she couldn't quite make out. She heard him say the word "God" and picked up the Gideon Bible collecting dust in the bedstand. She was halfway through Genesis when she'd decided she needed a drink. 

Toby was standing by her elbow, suddenly, dressed in jeans and a fresh shirt. She stood, and was about to follow him back to their room when he shrugged and ordered a beer, sidestepping the surprised quirk of her brow. 

"Mrs. Bartlet's waiting for you upstairs," he mumbled, not looking at her, but glancing up when CJ didn't answer right away. Her hand curled tightly around the brass railing of the bar. His smile was almost completely hidden by his beard, which she'd been telling him was in dire need of a trim. "It's okay." 

There were times when, amazingly, Toby's eyes said more than he did. 

The keycard was already digging a neat line into CJ's palm when the elevator doors dinged open to the empty seventh-story hallway. It worked on the fourth try, as it always did, and CJ hadn't expected to find _her_ sitting on her bed in her own wrinkled Prada. CJ stood by the television unit and stared. Abbey clicked off a paid-by spot and smiled wearily. CJ thought she looked beautiful like this, make-up smudged around eyes, skirt skewed around her waist, body sleep-deprived on CJ's sheets.   
 

* * *

  


"It doesn't count, not yet," Abbey explained between sighs with the unsoundable certainty of someone who wasn't sure at all. Her fingertips closed around the pearl earring on CJ's ear, turning it gently, and let CJ's long fingers on her thigh smooth away the red marks they had left earlier. CJ's own breath hitched when the mattress creaked under her, but the warmth of Abbey's stomach under her cheek lulled her into a remorseless slumber, and CJ slept four dreamless, glorious hours before waking up to the empty disquiet of rumpled sheets. 

 


End file.
